A cognitive-behavioral model of pathological Internet use

Davis (2001) developed a cognitive-behavioral model of pathological Internet use (PIU) in which the availability, and awareness of the Internet, psychopathologies such as depression, social anxiety or substance abuse, and situational cues providing reinforcement of Internet usage behaviors, interact to produce maladaptive cognitions(Charlton & Danforth, 2007). This model posits that user's cognition is responsible for PIU, and ineffective and/or behavioral symptoms in turn. To date, there has been no comprehensive study to test Davis' model. Lee, Choi et al. (2007) took the idea of cognitivebehavioral perspective (Davis, 2001) as an approach to developing tests of behavioral symptoms and negative outcomes of PIU respectively. Since their work was focused on developing the two tests, building or testing models of explicating PIU was not the main task. Thus, we attempted to reanalyze their data and to empirically explore and test a model of PIU.